Well we’re not exactly in Surfers Paradise. That is just up the road. We are in Broadbeach, which is a more upmarket area.

We went to the Carrara markets on Sunday morning. We already have enough stuff so we weren’t to buy anything. After an hour of looking around, our arms were loaded up with $80 worth of market merchandise. This consisted of two more boogie boards (but better ones because they are yellow), two pairs of jandals, a sarong (for Mike), beach sunglasses (for Mike, who is the girl here?), and a box full of mangoes.

Jenny and I had a surf lesson Sunday afternoon. I have some photos, but they are gonna take about an hour to upload at this dodgy internet cafe, so will do it when we are camping and its free.

We arrived in Surfers Paradise (well Broad beach really) a few days early. We didn’t really know what else to do to fill in time until Sunday, and we really needed to do some laundry. Luckily these apartments are fully self-contained with laundry facilities. Oh, and we have a lovely view of the ocean.

The beach is right opposite our hotel room and the lifeguards are right there too, so we went out for a boogie board on our Shrek boards.

We met up with Jenny and Barry and went out for dinner, followed by some gambling at Jupiter’s casino. I won $15 dollars and Mike lost $20, so we ended up $5 down. Not bad as we budgeted $50 to lose. I think I shall ban Mike from the blackjack table.

On Wed we took a drive out to Nimbin. We had heard it is semi-legal to sell, buy and smoke marijuana here, or is it that the cops just turn a blind eye?

Nimbin appears to be a village full of overage hippies who never really moved on from the 60s, and tourists who want to score drugs.

We went through the museum, and many people approached us. “Hey man, wanna buy some weed?” or “Wanna buy some marijuana?” or something like that. We didn’t because we don’t do that sort of thing. And my Mum is reading this blog.

Our last night in Byron Bay we cooked a barbie on the free barbies at the campground.

By Mike:

Tuesday we were booked to go snorkelling. We arrived at 12:30 so that I could get some instruction in the pool, as I had never done this before.

It was then a short drive to the beach and onto the boat for the ride to the island. There was a rather large swell and was a little scary when low down in the water on a RIB. We arrived at the Island and it was quite choppy. I put on my flippers and mask. Do I really want to jump in? I had second thoughts, and nearly everyone else was already in.

So it’s feet over the side and a quick slide into the water. I go straight under and pop up like a cork. I steady myself and finally look down and start snorkelling.

Where do I look, over here are tiny bright blue fish, over there is shuffle nose ray, no over there is a shark. This way, that way, hey calm down. Look below you, a turtle, cool man.

Now I can relax and take it all in slowly.

Heres a coupla a photos of our snorkelling trip today, taken with my new underwater camera. We saw turtles, sharks, rays and colourful fishies. Mike has a blog to follow.

Here’s Mike:

And some fishies:

I’m going surfing tomorrow!

Today we are feeling sticky and itchy. The solar shower is ok, but you never feel really clean. And all the itchy bites from bitey bugs are getting to us. I didn’t get much sleep last night due to the pounding of the ocean, and dodgy pushy estate agents nagging on my mind.

We got up a 6:45am and started to pack up the tent, but it was still wet. We gave up and just bundled it into the car, mud and all.

We stopped at a ghost town type place where there were no people, but there was a funky café open for breakfast. We stopped and had a nice coffee and a bacon and egg muffin each (that just blew our budget for the day!).

We are now in Byron Bay at a camping ground. It was nice to have a hot shower and wash away all the stickiness. We just had a very nice meal. Mike had garlic prawn risotto and I had korean stir fry chicken. All was washed down with a bottle of Giesen Sauvignon ( from Marlborough of course).

I

We decided that Yuraygir National Park was too nice to leave, so we decided to stay another night. We took a drive to Wooli to see what was there. It was also a nice spot by the river, but nowhere near as nice as Minnie Water.

We headed back to Yuraygir National Park, did some washing, Mike mended a small rip in the tent, then went on a walk. We were strolling through the bush when I came an inch away from walking through a giant spiders web. “Phew, that was close”, I said to Mike. “Lucky there was no spider in there.”

I sent Mike ahead, and we continued on. We said hello to some people coming the other way, who warned us to watch out for spiders. I told them about the close encounter I just had. Then the guy said, “There’s one just above your head.” I looked up and I was face to face with a giant spider the size of my open hand. I screamed and jumped close to Mike for protection. Then Mike screamed and also jumped looking for protection. They said there was another giant spider further down the track and it was lower over the path. “That’s it! We’re outta here”. Mike looked at me rather confused, obviously wanting to venture further on the walk. “I’m serious Mike, I’m not going any further on this giant spider infested walk!”

Suddenly I felt trapped between two giant spiders so I ducked down as low as I could, and ran as fast as I could under the giant spider until I was in the clearing.

We had a quiet afternoon, as Mike’s tummy is still not well. I am enjoying the book Mum bought me about the lone traveller cycling around the world. I am planning my next trip as I am reading it.

We had to resort to emergency food for dinner, as we didn’t get any meat from the shops. Mike had left over spaghetti bolognaise from the previous night, and I had two minute noodles. Mmmm, nutritious

Sadly we departed the beautiful view of Moonee beach and headed for Byron Bay. We took a detour and ended up in a place called Minnie Water. We headed into Yuraygir National Park and found a beautiful spot in the Illaroo camping area that overlooked the ocean. We had our own private path that led down to the beach. It was even nicer than Moonee beach. We set up camp and headed down to the surf to try out our new boogie boards. (Yes Mum, we are collecting more stuff!). We suspect the boogie boards may be kids ones. They are quite light and they have Shrek the third all over them. Mine worked ok. Mike had a bit of trouble with his. But they only cost $12 so what can you expect.

For dinner we cooked some spaghetti bolognaise, enjoyed a few beers and watched the sun go down.

photos to come.

We finally left Port Macquarie and are now in a really nice place called Moonee Beach just north of Coffs Harbour.

Here’s Mike hanging out the washing:

Heres a piccy of the beach from our camp:

The weather has finally turned hot and sunny. Dory’s air conditioning packed up today, so we will have to get that seen to. We think that is why she was making that screeching sound.